A man in a seven-year relationship recently posted on Reddit with a question he never expected to ask: does my girlfriend have a toilet fetish? According to his account, what started as a single giggling comment about bathroom habits escalated into a repeating pattern. She would use the toilet while he showered, finish around the time he stepped out, then immediately pull him into heavy kissing and steer things toward the bedroom. Once could be coincidence. After several rounds, he started to wonder whether something about the bathroom itself was turning her on.
The post went viral, drawing thousands of comments and splitting readers into camps. Some called it harmless quirk. Others told him he was watching a fetish unfold in slow motion. But beneath the jokes, the thread surfaced a question that sex therapists say comes up more often than people realize: what do you do when you suspect your partner has a kink they have not named, and every attempt to address it gets deflected with laughter?
Why the “slow reveal” pattern matters
Several Reddit commenters speculated that the girlfriend might be testing the waters, introducing small behaviors to gauge her partner’s reaction before ever putting a label on what she wanted. That theory is not just internet armchair psychology. Dr. Justin Lehmiller, a social psychologist and researcher at the Kinsey Institute, has written extensively about how people with stigmatized sexual interests often use indirect strategies to assess a partner’s openness before risking direct disclosure. In his book Tell Me What You Want (2018), Lehmiller found that many people with uncommon fantasies spend years hinting before they feel safe enough to have a frank conversation, if they ever do.
That dynamic creates a specific problem. When one partner is hinting and the other is confused, neither person is actually consenting to what is happening. The boyfriend in this case described feeling uneasy but unsure whether he was overreacting. That uncertainty is the point: without clear communication, he cannot meaningfully say yes or no to something that has not been stated out loud.
Bathroom comfort vs. bathroom arousal
Not every couple that talks openly about bodily functions is flirting with fetish territory. For many long-term partners, being candid about digestion, periods or bathroom habits is simply a marker of trust. Couples dealing with chronic illnesses like Crohn’s disease or irritable bowel syndrome often need to discuss these things for practical and medical reasons. And research published in The Journal of Sex Research has shown that humor during sexual encounters can reduce anxiety and increase feelings of closeness, particularly when something awkward or unexpected happens.
The distinction that clinicians draw is about arousal. When bathroom-related behavior consistently precedes or accompanies sexual excitement, the pattern starts to look less like comfort and more like a paraphilia. The DSM-5-TR, the diagnostic manual used by mental health professionals in the United States, classifies paraphilias as persistent and intense sexual interests in atypical objects, situations or individuals. Critically, the manual distinguishes between a paraphilia (an unusual interest) and a paraphilic disorder (an interest that causes distress or harm). Having an uncommon kink is not, by itself, a diagnosis. It becomes a clinical concern only when it causes significant personal suffering or involves people who have not consented.
What we know about toilet-related kinks
Coprophilia, defined in clinical literature as sexual arousal connected to feces, and urophilia, its urine-related counterpart, are among the less commonly studied paraphilias. A 2023 medical review published in StatPearls describes coprophilia as involving sexual excitement tied to viewing, smelling or handling feces, or to fantasies about another person’s defecation. The review notes that it may appear alongside other paraphilic interests.
Broad surveys of sexual fantasy suggest that unconventional interests are more common than most people assume. A widely cited 2015 study by Christian Joyal and colleagues, published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, surveyed over 1,500 adults and found that several fantasies typically labeled “unusual” were reported by a significant minority of respondents. The gap between fantasy and action was large: many people who fantasized about taboo scenarios had never acted on them with a partner. Toilet-related interests sit at the far end of social taboo, which likely makes the gap between private fantasy and partner disclosure even wider.
There are also health considerations that rarely come up in online discussions. Direct contact with feces carries real infection risks, including exposure to bacteria like E. coli and parasites. Any couple considering scat play needs to understand those risks and take precautions, a point that sex educators stress but that viral Reddit threads tend to skip.
Consent does not have a loophole for humor
The core issue in the Reddit post is not whether the girlfriend’s interest is normal or abnormal. It is whether both partners are operating with full information. Licensed sex therapists are consistent on this point: consent requires clarity, and humor is not a substitute for it.
“If someone is using jokes to introduce a sexual behavior without ever naming it, the other person cannot give informed consent,” says the general guidance from the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT). A partner always has the right to draw a boundary, and that boundary does not require justification. This applies equally to kinks that are widely accepted, like light bondage, and to those that carry heavier stigma.
Online advice communities reflect this tension. In one r/relationship_advice thread, a man who discovered his girlfriend’s scat interest was told bluntly: talk to her, and if it is a dealbreaker for you, say so. In another thread on r/AskMenAdvice, a woman who suspected her boyfriend had a urine fetish was encouraged to ask directly rather than keep guessing. The advice in both cases came down to the same thing: stop interpreting and start talking.
How to actually have the conversation
Sex educators generally recommend raising sensitive topics outside the bedroom, in a neutral moment when neither partner is aroused or vulnerable. Refinery29’s guide to discussing kinks suggests framing the conversation around curiosity rather than accusation: “I’ve noticed a pattern and I want to understand it” lands differently than “I think you have a fetish.”
For the person carrying the stigmatized interest, disclosure can feel enormous. Writer Meghan Cherry, who publicly discussed her own kink on television, described the experience as sharing something that felt like it could permanently change how people saw her. That fear of judgment is real, and it explains why some people cling to jokes and hints instead of plain language. But therapists are clear that the alternative, letting a partner feel confused, pressured or manipulated, is worse for the relationship in the long run.
The boyfriend in the viral post has been with his girlfriend for seven years. That is a long time to build trust and a lot to risk by staying silent. Whether her behavior reflects a genuine fetish, a playful habit or something she herself has not fully sorted out, the only path forward is a direct, low-pressure conversation where both people can be honest without fear of ridicule.
If that conversation reveals a kink one partner cannot accept, that is a legitimate outcome too. Compatibility matters in the bedroom as much as anywhere else, and no one is obligated to participate in something that makes them uncomfortable, no matter how long they have been together.
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